PROMOTING THE HISTORY AND ARCHIVES OF MT COMPASS
Peters, Howard
Howard Bishop Peters (Sergeant)
On 14th May 1915, Howard Peters had the distinction of being the first man in this district to enlist in World War 1. The fact that the Gallipoli landing had commenced only three weeks prior may have had some bearing on this decision. Howard would not return until June 1919, when a welcome home social was held in the Mount Compass Hall in honour of himself and Walter George Waye.
Howard, born at Stirling in 1891, was the third son of Richard Peters and Cora Jacobs, early pioneers of the Mount Compass district.
He was first educated at Stirling, followed by a year at Willunga in 1897, and then in 1898 his parents moved to Mount Compass where he attended the Nangkita School. The following year, when the Compass school opened in the renovated Roadman’s Cottage, he was one of the first nine students enrolled, along with his two brothers and a sister.
On leaving school, Howard worked on the family’s Nangkita Road property, alongside his brothers, and was known to be a perfectionist in his work. He also worked on the new Willunga railway line prior to the war, as did his brother, Sydney Alan Peters (1889-1978).
Howard’s army records show that he enlisted in the infantry with the 27th battalion at the age of twenty-four and was 5 feet 4¾ inches tall (1.64m). His religion was listed as Methodist but, by the time he enlisted again in World War 2, this had changed to Baptist.
After leaving Australia on 24th June 1915, Howard disembarked at Mudros, a small Greek port on the island of Lemnos, which was only one hundred kilometres from the Gallipoli Peninsula. What part Howard played in this particular campaign is not known, but by January 1916, he was disembarking at Alexandria, in Egypt, where his battalion would undergo training and reorganisation following the Gallipoli campaign.
The 27th Battalion, was then sent to Marseilles, France, to serve on the Western Front as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), landing there on 21st of March 1916.
In July of that year, Howard’s battalion participated in the first major battle at Pozieres before transferring to the Belgium front (where things were a little quieter). The struggle for that one square mile summit of Pozieres lasted 45 days and cost the Australian forces 23,000 casualties and has been described as “a ridge more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth.”* They later took part in two attacks to the east of Flers in the Somme Valley, both of which floundered in the mud.
Howard was promoted to lance corporal on 4th December 1916, after which he would be given a further temporary promotion to full corporal on two occasions, both occurred when the soldier of that rank was wounded. Howard was also wounded in action on 12th May 1917 but remained on duty. He would be evacuated to a hospital within hours however, after being noted as ‘sick’, and was consequently returned to the rank of lance corporal. A reference to his knee is noted on his medical record but the exact nature of this injury did not find its way into the records, although his next of kin was notified that he had been wounded.
Later Howard’s promotion to corporal was made permanent, and he was fortunate to be appointed in July 1917 to the relative safety of the 7th Training Battalion in England, based on the Salisbury Plain.
Sites mentioned on his service record from this time include the English towns of Tidworth, Rollestone and Fovant, where fresh troops arriving from Australia were trained prior to deployment in France and Belgium. Instruction topics included: firing rifle grenades, the Lewis light machine gun, dealing with gas attacks, using hand grenades, bayonet use, and trench routines.
Howard, with his recent battlefield experience, would train these eager volunteers who, after only a few weeks training, would be sent to face the horrors of trench warfare.
By the end of December that year Howard returned to France as the number of Australians volunteering to fight in that war was beginning to decline. Two attempts by the Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, to introduce conscription were defeated in the 1916 and 1917 referendums. Corporal Peters would see further action in both Belgium and France during this time, including at the Somme, in March.
In May 1918, General John Monash was placed in charge of the recently formed ‘Australian Corps’, comprising all five Australian Divisions. He would prove to be a skilled leader, meticulously planning their future actions.
On 8 August 1918, the Australian and Canadian Corps led one such well-planned attack known as the Battle of Amiens. The Australians advanced ten kilometres, shattering the German Divisions and demonstrating that the Germans had no chance of winning that war. This was the only battle where all the South Australian battalions fought on the same day, on the same battlefield.
During this battle, the 27th Battalion was responsible for capturing two hundred prisoners as well as a number of machine guns and artillery pieces. The casualties during this action were noted as being ‘high’ and promotions were happening quickly in the trenches, as the casualty figures rose.
When his temporary sergeant was killed in action, Howard was briefly appointed to take his place. This was then made permanent when another sergeant was killed in action less than a month later. What affect the deaths of these immediate superiors had on Howard’s mindset, as he stepped up to take their place, can only be guessed at. Like many, he did not discuss his war experiences with family members when he returned.
A month after his latest promotion, he was granted two week’s leave – which saw him head to England. Howard is known to have visited some of his English relatives during his war service, and it may well have been during this break. He then saw out the remainder of the war in France, surviving to return to England in January 1919, and then arriving back in Australia aboard the Steamer ‘Trasos Montes’ on the 20th of May 1919.
For his service, Howard Peters was awarded three medals, the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal (right).
After four long years away, Howard was greeted at Outer Harbour by his parents, and Will Waye, who owned the first motor vehicle in Mount Compass (a half-ton Ford truck).
The family story is that Howard had been gassed during the war and was not a strong man when he returned. As with many who fought in that war, he was thought of as being a changed man when he returned to Australia.
In the year he returned, Howard married the young Port Elliot woman he had met prior to leaving, Nellie Gertrude Williamson. His father, Richard, helped by his sons, built a home for the couple on Howard’s property to replace the little cottage across the road in which the newly-weds began their married life. This home is near the old Nangkita Church which was built on land Howard later donated for that purpose. The couple would go on to raise six children, Ben, Kelvin, Nellie (married Philps), Audrey (m. Schomburgk), Doreen (m. Simons) and Ida (m. Langford). A seventh child, Florence, passed away as an infant.
With the introduction in the mid-1920s of superphosphate, along with trace elements and subterranean clover, the Peters’ land became more productive, and Howard decided to try dairy farming. He approached this endeavour with his usual high level of commitment and attended Roseworthy Agricultural College to expand his knowledge.
Needless to say, he soon had a fine Jersey stud herd, operating under the name “Mira Chana Jersey Stud”. Howard quickly became the go-to man whenever neighbours had trouble with their cows, especially during calving time.
As a member of the Mt Compass Agricultural Bureau, Howard was one of the instigators of the schoolboy potato growing competition, which proved to be a valuable learning experience for many local lads (the girls had their own flower competition).
Like many others milking dairy cows, the Peters produced their own butter, with Kelvin later recalling that in the 1920s his father carted this down to the guest houses at Victor Harbor.
When World War 2 came along, Howard enlisted again at the ripe age of 49. He served with the 3rd Training Battalion, no doubt utilising his skills from the previous war, and also with the Darwin Overland Maintenance Force (DOMF). His health was not always the best however, forcing him spend time in the Alice Springs hospital with influenza and then further sick leave periods with what may have been kidney stones.
Howard was discharged from the army on 25th October 1943 with his occupation of dairy farmer now being viewed as an “essential service”, requiring his return to Mt Compass and civilian life.
Many years later, Kelvin reflected on his father’s approach to the Second World War, with his sons left to grow vegetables under contract for the army (and managing to grow up to eleven acres of carrots in one season). Had this been Howard’s way of trying to keep his two sons away from the war, Kelvin wondered, although his other son, Ben, did sign up in 1941 for the same DOMF campaign as his father.
Howard became a local fire officer in the early 1930s and was the chief Fire-Officer for many years, helping to build the first fire shed where the hotel/tavern now stands. It was of simple construction, using stringy bark poles from the Mt Jagged area, along with a few sawn timbers, and was clad with corrugated iron. (His son Kelvin, who assisted his father, later recalled that when cutting through what they thought was a tree root for one of the post holes, they cut a telephone cable – which then required extensive repair work!)
Howard proved to be a capable man with his hands, constructing concrete water tanks as well as many items of furniture for his house. As he aged, his health deteriorated and the couple retired to Adelaide where Nellie would soon pass away at the age of 76, followed by Howard two years later, aged 77 (in 1968). The couple’s ashes are now buried together at the Mount Compass Cemetery, after being relocated from Centennial Park by their son Ben, on behalf of the family.
Nellie Peters (nee Williamson) was apparently well-connected, reported as being a cousin to Premier Thomas Playford’s wife, and also possibly to another Member of Parliament, Frank Halleday MLC.
Nellie, the daughter of Benjamin Williamson and Pheobe Louisa Halleday, was born on the 2nd of April 1890. The surname Halleday is also spelt as Halliday by another branch of the family. The spelling was changed slightly when two brothers fell out, resulting in one then spelling the surname with an ‘i’ and the other with an ‘e’.
A story has been passed down the Peters’ family that when Premier Thomas Playford attended the formal opening of the War Memorial Hall in 1958, he enquired where Howard Peters was. Upon being told he was ill at home, the premier asked his chauffer to drive him over to Howard’s home where the two men met. The story goes that Howard and the Premier knew each other from their World War 1 days but, if their wives were related, this may have also had something to do with this unusual visit.
*From “A Short History of the Origins of the Royal South Australian Regiment” prepared by Adrian Hodges RSM 10/27 Bn RSAR.
References: Australian War Memorial Records (https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/U51467), Kelvin Peters audio recording, Peters Family History booklet, Wikipedia, familysearch.org and with assistance from June Niejalke, Malcolm Langford, Richard Langford, Judith Rayner and Ronda Arthur.
